“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, as long as ever you can,” John Wesley had preached to his followers-- among them Rodhams in the Welsh countryside, Hillary’s father had told her. For the young Hillary Clinton this Wesleyan article of faith became a mantra.

“While Bill sought solace in his familiar escapes,” I wrote in the prologue of 'A Woman in Charge,' "she read the Bible of her Methodist childhood and considered anew this explicit message of service in John Wesley’s teaching. . . Aside from her family, Hillary’s Methodism is perhaps the most important foundation of her character. As one of her aides said during the winter’s night of the Lewinsky epoch, ‘Hillary’s faith is the link.' …It explains the missionary zeal with which she attacks her issues and goes after them, and why she’s done it for thirty years. And, it also explains the really extraordinary self-discipline and focus and ability to rely on her spirituality to get through all this [Lewinskiy, impeachment, etc]….She’s a woman of tremendous faith. Again, not advertised. She’s not one of those people who’s out there doing the holy roller stuff. But that’s how she gets through it: some people go to shrinks, she does it by being a Methodist.”

Within four weeks after Bill’s inauguration in 1993, Hillary had joined a women’s prayer circle whose members were a surprising group, among them Susan Baker, the wife of James Baker, the Bush’ family’s grand retainer and former secretary of state; Joanne Kemp, wife of the former Republican congressman Jack Kemp, who would run for vice president against the Clinton-Gore ticket in 1996; Grace Nelson, wife of Demcoratic senator Bill Nelson of Florida; and Holly Leachman, wife of Washington Redskins chaplain Jerry Leachman and herself a lay minister at the McLean Bible church in Virginia, where many prominent Republican senators and conservative luminaries worshipped, including Kenneth Starr, soon to be the special prosecutor committed to indefatigable pursuit of Hillary Clinton.

Each of Hillary’s “prayer partners,” with whom she tried to meet each week when she was in town promised to pray for Hillary regularly and presented her with a handmade book of biblical passages, personal messages and spiritual axioms to help sustain her during her time in Washington. Holly Leachman would come to the White House to pray with Hillary throughout the Clinton presidency, and Susan Baker became a pillar of sisterly spiritual support during Hillary’s personal political difficulties in the aftermath of her health care debacle, the death of her father, and the months of Lewinsky madness.

Though Hillary would later be accused by opponents and enemies of cynically becoming religious and adopting more traditional values for the purpose of political advancement after her election to the Senate, the charge was not grounded in fact. But there were colleagues and presidential aides in the White House who viewed her religious life with suspicion and cynicism, on other grounds, identifying it as an enabling element of a self-righteous streak that undermined her supposed “good works,” and generally served to cover her faults. Some saw it as a mask in her relationship with her husband.

"She elevates her staying with [Bill] to a moral level of biblical proportion,” said a presidential deputy. “‘I am stronger than he is. I am better than he is. Therefore, I can stay with him because it’s my biblical duty to love the sinner, and to help to try to overcome his defects of
character. His sins are of weakness not of malice.’ ” Others noted her forgiveness of her husband through the difficulties of their marriage, but that—far from invoking any biblical notion of forgiveness towards the women involved with him—she had them investigated, encouraged efforts to smear them in the press, and in private, promised retribution.

Perhaps the most revealing interview she gave between her husband’s election and inauguration was with the United Methodist News Service, though it received scant attention in the mainstream press. A single paragraph encapsulated much of what her friends found so appealing about her, and her enemies were most enraged by: her seeming moral certainty.

Methodism’s “emphasis on personal salvation combined with active
applied Christianity,” she said, was what she believed in. “As a Christian,
part of my obligation is to take action to alleviate suffering. Explicit
recognition of that in the Methodist tradition is one reason I’m comfortable
in this church.”

A native of Washington, D.C., Carl Bernstein is a former reporter for The Washington Post. He and colleague Bob Woodward won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting of the Watergate scandal in 1973 and they wrote two books about the Watergate affair, “All the President’s Men” and “The Final Days.” In the movie version of “All the President’s Men,” Bernstein was played by Dustin Hoffman. He left The Post in 1976 to pursue an independent writing career. He has published books on his parents, who were communists (“Loyalties: A Son’s Memoir”), on Pope John Paul II (“His Holiness”) and most recently on Hillary Clinton (“A Woman in Charge”). He lives in New York City.

By BOB WOODWARD

Examining, even discussing, President George W. Bush and his religion is one tricky undertaking for a reporter. I would normally pass but my friend Sally Quinn has insisted and pressed like a good editor, saying in an e-mail: "When can we get your piece. Sorry to bug you." I suspect she is not that sorry.

Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, any person's declarations about religious convictions and practices have to be taken pretty much at face value. So let me turn to interviews I did with President Bush in December 2003 that touched on religion or God.

The morning of March 19, 2003, he gave the final order for the Iraq War. After giving the order, he said, he went out through the door in the Oval Office to walk by himself. He was hoping that his dogs Barney or Spot would be there. "It was emotional for me, it really was."

I asked, "You prayed?"

"I did pray," he said. "Of course. I prayed going into the room. I prayed a lot during this period by the way . . . I prayed as I walked around the circle." (A White House photo of him walking alone that morning appears in my 2004 book, "Plan of Attack.")

I did not really expect him to answer the next question. "Can you tell me what the gist of those prayers were?"

"I prayed that our troops be safe, be protected by the Almighty, that there be a minimal loss of life," President Bush said.

He continued, "Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will . . . .I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case I pray that I be as good a messenger of His will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for personal strength and for forgiveness."

About a month after these interviews, Condi Rice, then the national security adviser, called to say that she had reviewed a transcript of the interviews with Bush and she had discussed the March 19, 2003, prayers with the president. She said he also prayed that morning for all those who were to go into harm's way and for the country. So I added such a line to the book.

Whatever anyone might think of Bush, the Iraq War or his religious views, it seemed to me that he was taking his prayers very seriously that day. And as the commander-in-chief he should. (The above is taken from Plan of Attack p. 379.)

I also asked the president about what advice or recommendation his father, the former President Bush, might have given him about going to war with Saddam Hussein. Bush senior had led the international coalition in the first Gulf War in 1991 against Saddam Hussein who had invaded and occupied neighboring Kuwait.

President Bush replied, "I can't remember a moment where he said, 'Don't do this' or 'Do this.' I can't remember a moment where I said to myself, maybe he can help me make the decision. Because you got to understand, this decision is not like all of a sudden there is a threat to Kuwait. And boom. This is part of a larger obligation that came to be on September the 11th, 2001."

I asked if he had any discussions with his father prior to the war.

"I'm confident---sure we did. I'm trying to remember. It is an incredible history to have a father and son fight a war in the same theater. That's never happened before."

President Bush continued, "I'm not trying to be evasive. I don't remember. I could ask him and see if he remembers something."

I pressed because it seemed that of all people he would have found a way to ask his father.
After some additional back and forth, President Bush finally said a line that has been much quoted---rightly so, in my opinion. The line is, "You know, he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to." (This is taken from Plan of Attack, pp. 420-21)

I was very surprised and I should have been quick enough to ask that he give me the gist of those appeals to the higher father. But I did not. And it is still unclear what recommendation President Bush's father---the lower father, if you will---might have made.

In retrospect two of the questions I wish I had asked are:

"What does it mean to 'be as good a messenger of His will as possible'?"

"How do you know and evaluate if you are on the right course?"

Bob Woodward, a Yale graduate who served in the Navy, became a reporter for The Washington Post in 1970. He teamed up with Carl Bernstein to investigate the Watergate affair. After winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1973, they wrote the best-selling books “All the President’s Men” and “The Final Days” which chronicled the end of the Nixon administration. In the movie version of “All the President’s Men,” he was played by Robert Redford. He went on to write best-selling books on the Supreme Court (“The Brethren”), the CIA (“Veil”), the Clinton administration (“The Agenda”), and the U.S. war in Iraq (“Bush at War,” “Plan of Attack” and “State of Denial.”). He has also written two more books about Watergate (“Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate" and “The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat”). He is now an assistant managing editor of The Post.